*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. *To Read Part Three, please click here.   On November 24, one day before Russia’s November 25 attacks on Ukrainian ships, Russia’s State Secretary and Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Grigory Karasin... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here.   Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and the resulting de facto border changes have overturned the geographical and political foundations of the 2003 Russia-Ukraine treaty on the Azov Sea and Kerch... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   The 2003 treaty between Russia and Ukraine on “Cooperation in the Use of the Azov Sea and Kerch Strait,” officially in effect to this day and “sine die,” purports to place those two bodies of water outside... MORE

  Russia has perpetrated acts of war against Ukraine in the Kerch Strait and the adjacent portion of the Black Sea on November 25 (see EDM, November 26, 28, 29). Moreover, during the preceding months, Russia had systematically and aggressively obstructed Ukrainian and international shipping... MORE

Russia has staged “republic“-level “elections” in Donetsk and Luhansk for the second time in four years, establishing a regular quadrennial electoral cycle there. This move is designed to perpetuate the “republics” de facto, institutionalizing them more firmly and exploiting a murky situation of undefined status... MORE

The Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” (DPR, LPR) staged pseudo-presidential and pseudo-parliamentary elections on November 11 (see EDM, November 15), pursuant to decisions handed down from the Kremlin in early September (see EDM, September 12, 13). Along with the November 24–25 naval attacks on Ukrainian... MORE

Kremlin-orchestrated, internationally unrecognized “elections” were held on November 11 in the Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” (DPR, LPR), Russian-controlled territories in Ukraine’s east. The final returns, made public on November 14, serve to confirm and prolong the authority of the “head of the republic” (“glava... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   The 5+2 negotiation format—comprised of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Russia and Ukraine as mediators; the United States and the European Union as observers; and Moldova and Transnistria as “parties to the conflict”—oversees... MORE

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has functioned under Russia-friendly chairmanships in the last three years: Germany (2016), Austria (2017) and Italy (2018). The heavyweight German chairmanship, under then–minister of foreign affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier (now head of state), launched a Moldova-Transnistria experiment... MORE

Yevgeny Primakov and Dmitry Kozak, names identified with Russia’s past attempts to “federalize” Moldova with Transnistria (1997 “Primakov Plan Memorandum”; 2003 “Kozak Plan Memorandum”), are now returning to Moldova in updated iterations. Kozak, currently deputy prime minister, has been tasked by Russian President Vladimir Putin... MORE